"Corbett has just published a terrific new anthology of his writing called Microgroove, the long-delayed follow-up to his 1994 book Extended Play. . . . There's a lot of great stuff in the new book—which went through multiple iterations over the years, scrapped and revisited several times—but in his introduction to a piece called 'Twenty-Seven Enthusiasms: A Spontaneous Listening Session,' Corbett expresses a major part of what makes his work so special. 'Show-and-tell was always my favorite part of school,' he writes, eventually explaining that 'you accumulate things not to own them, but to share them.' It's what he's done as a writer, a music presenter, and, in recent years, a gallerist, at Corbett vs. Dempsey." — Peter Margasak, Chicago Reader
"One of the more interesting features of Microgroove is the inclusion of multiple pieces on some of the artists. This allows Corbett to consider them from different angles or over time, providing a fuller picture of their art in the process. That, combined with the eclectic scope of Corbett’s interests, makes of Microgroove a rich, multifaceted survey of some of the more challenging artists of the last two decades." — Daniel Barbiero, Avant Music News
"The far-ranging scope of the 53 essays and interviews collected in these nearly 500 pages, dating from 1993 to just last year, reminds us that even within music’s commercially neglected fringes complex gradations of sub-genre exist, separating the hardcore avant-garde devotee from one who thinks they’re down because they own a copy of Space Is the Place. ... But first and foremost [Corbett] is a devotee of challenging and outré sounds, and his essays are most compelling when he dives headfirst into his chronicles with a fan’s enthusiasm and verve. ...These pieces beautifully balance serious musical scholarship and critical analysis with the kind of collar-grabbing, “give-this-a-listen” excitement that draws us all to music in the first place." — Matt R. Lohr, JazzTimes
"Corbett, like the best kind of record store crate digger, pinpoints the association between acknowledged innovators and the achievements of lesser-known figures. . .. [T]he book’s key achievement is how Corbett’s psychiatrist-like probing questions elicit the most definitive and/or instructive statements about their art from certain musicians." — Ken Waxman, MusicWorks
"John Corbett is a smart guy who really, really loves music, and his intelligence and enthusiasm come through in every one of the essays and articles in this volume of his collected writings.... Anyone interested in what was happening on the cutting edge of music during the years these articles appeared needs to read this anthology of John Corbett’s writing." — Ed Hazell, ARSC Journal
"John Corbett's singular critical voice is wildly alive in his latest book, a compendium of previous writings, sober re?ections, clever visuals, idiosyncratic interviews, and post-genre insights into the thriving ecology of knowledge that is the contemporary music scene. At once this is a book that takes its place alongside other distinctive voices in the pell-mell topography of recent musical criticism, from Greg Tate and Lester Bangs to Nat Hentoff and Nate Chinen, and the work of an itinerant witness bearing testimony marked by a vast respect and love for improvised musicking and musical diversity.... Microgroove is an eloquent, readable, playful testimony to the otherness of music as an allegory for creative freedom and as a generative social practice that refuses limitations." — Daniel T. Fischlin, Journal of Popular Music Studies
“Microgroove is a brilliant contribution to the tradition of Nat Hentoff, Lester Bangs, Robert Christgau, John Rockwell, and Robert Palmer. John Corbett loves improvisation and can write about unusual and nonpopular music in popular ways, taking readers behind the curtain to help them understand what creativity means and the conditions under which it comes to be. Corbett plays against the ultra-narrowcasting concept that dominates media now, and seeks audiences willing to chance an encounter with the unexpected. The genre-busting of Microgroove is highly laudable and sorely needed." — George E. Lewis, author of A Power Stronger Than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music
"John Corbett likes, I'm sorry - LOVES - all kinds of music. But who doesn't? Well most people really just dig one kind of genre or other but there are those who are into it ALL and continue to seek and follow the wild threads from African American jazz, blues, R&B and hip hop to the indie rock heart beat of college kid psychosis to the luscious worlds of Braziliana to European free improvisation to Japanese noise and pop paroxysm. One may suspect this erudite fellow as a chin scratching academic but I've been in the passenger seat next to this dude while he's blasting Chicago blues cassettes and he's hammering the steering wheel and fully turned on by the dripping music moment of creation and emotion. To share and express the impression of expression in discussion to the intellect and to the cosmic fire, this is where the righteously engaged Corbett comes into play. The respect, consideration and wonder is genuine. As music defines his aesthetic perspective, so he playfully identifies our sentience with the promise of music, the power of foreverness." — Thurston Moore